Back in The PRC, Don't Know How Lucky You Are, Boy!

I’m back in the good old People’s Republic again (not Cork- China). Wow, the whole going home thing seems like a blur! Last thing I remember was drinking pints in Doyle’s and eating a doner kebab in Abrakebabra and the next thing I knew I was back in Dalian!

I did have a great time at home. Shame I caught a cold half way through which hampered my excursions a bit, but I did enjoy seeing family and friends, going to the pub (of course), paying a visit to Funderland (funfair which is a Mecca for the Chinese in Ireland) and dining on such quality foods as snack boxes, rashers and sausages and King crisps! At the end of my stay, I reckoned I hadn’t stayed long enough. Maybe so, but it always feels like that when you have to leave. It would have been the same way if I had stayed an extra week.

I am adjusting to Dalian life again. I don’t plan to stay here for long. I’d like to get going on my travels with a week or so, to escape the sub-zero temperatures! People in Ireland were whinging about the cold there. Man, it’s nothing compared to here. Then again, Dalian is nothing compared to more northerly parts like Shenyang and even worse, Harbin! However shitty we think things are, there’s always somewhere else more shitty!

I have to organise my travel plans now. I have a vague plan of hitting some places in the south, but that depends on contacting people I know, which I am in the process of doing. I also might see if there is anyone I know in Dalian who is going to travel.

The internet here still seems to be suffering from the effects the undersea earthquake. On December 26th, there was an earthquake with a magnitude of seven on the Richter scale off the coast of Taiwan. This knocked out something like 7 out of 9 undersea communications cables, which has affected internet and phone service from some Asian countries (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan …) to the outside world. Some stuff like gmail seems ok but other sites are running very slowly. Can’t access flickr at all (so no photos for a while) and others are dog slow! Allegedly services should be up and running by next week, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the services are fine but a certain government has deliberately throttled the bandwidth to overseas countries, using the earthquake as a shield!!